Alex Moss EditorStudioCanal are celebrating one of Britain’s earliest trailblazing female directors – Muriel Box. With 12 directorial features to her name, the filmmaker remains to date the most prolific UK female director in history, and now, three of her best-loved works make their debut on Blu-ray as part of StudioCanal’s Vintage Classics line.
THE PASSIONATE STRANGER, THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN, and RATTLE OF A SIMPLE MAN will be available in the UK on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital from 14 August.
We took a closer look at these releases.
THE PASSIONATE STRANGER (1957) centres around happily married house-wife Judith Wynter (Margaret Leighton) who keeps the fact she is a best-selling author of steamy romance novels, a closely guarded secret. As her husband Roger (Ralph Richardson), recovers from a serious illness, the couple’s new driver Carlo (Carlo Justini) discovers the manuscript of Judith’s latest novel and jumps to a rather unfortunate conclusion, making life in the Wynter household very complicated indeed! Boldly experimental in form and an entertaining riposte to the romance novel, the BFI declares, ‘The Passionate Stranger surely has no serious rival as the most dazzlingly ambitious commercial British film of the 1950s in terms of form and, in its fluent manipulation of meta-fictional levels, now looks several decades ahead of its time.’
Special Features
- New: An Out and Out Feminist: Muriel Box and The Passionate Stranger, featuring interviews with Film Historian Dr. Josephine Botting, author of Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties Rachel Cooke, film director Carol Morley
- The Woman Behind the Picture: Archive interview with Muriel Box Part 1
- Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery
- Original Trailer
THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN (1957), which Muriel called her most personal film, reveals the complex lives of women and the assertion that women can and should be ‘an equal partner in the business of life’. A witty and touching comedy with a great cast including Laurence Harvey, Julie Harris, Eva Gabor, Mai Zetterling and Diane Cilento, the film features striking cinematography from Otto Heller and sumptuous costume design by Cecil Beaton.
Special Features
- New: An Equal Partner in the Business of Life: Muriel Box & The Truth About Women, featuring interviews with Film Historian Dr. Josephine Botting, author of Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties Rachel Cooke, film director Carol Morley
- The Woman Behind the Picture: Archive interview with Muriel Box Part 2
- Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery
- Original Trailer
RATTLE OF A SIMPLE MAN (1964) follows Percy Winthram (Harry H Corbett), a shy, naïve 39-year-old who is in London with his friends for the Cup Final. When he meets beautiful hostess Cyrenne (Diane Cilento) in a Soho strip club and accepts a bet, a night of lust seems to be on the cards, but back at her apartment Percy’s innocence and vulnerability become all too evident. A bittersweet study of two characters from very different walks of life, the film is imbued with endearing and heartwarming humour and some stark home truths.
Special Features
- New: Game for Anything: Muriel Box & Rattle of A Simple Man, featuring interviews with Film Historian Dr. Josephine Botting, author of Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties Rachel Cooke, film director Carol Morley
- New Interview with actor Hugh Futcher
- Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery
- Original Trailer
About Muriel Box
Muriel Box was born in 1905 in Surrey and started reading scripts for British Instructional Pictures at Welwyn Garden City, before moving to BIP at Elstree into the Continuity department. She met and married Sydney Box, and introducing him to the film industry, they formed a documentary production company, Verity Films, that produced propaganda films during the War. In 1945 Muriel and Sydney wrote The Seventh Veil, which appears at no 10 in the BFI’s list of the biggest UK cinema hits of all time based on audience figures (more people saw it at the cinema than Harry Potter). The film won them the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay – Muriel becoming the first ever woman to win the award. Eventually they both ended up at Gainsborough Studios, with Muriel heading up the script department, and then Rank. In 1950 she finally directed her first feature, The Happy Family (1952), although at the time they had to pretend that Sydney was co-directing, to keep the distributors happy. After her directing career ended in 1964, she left the film industry to co-found Britain’s first feminist publishing house, Femina, and later became a campaigner for women’s rights, working with her friend, Edith Summerskill the Labour politician, to reform Britain’s divorce laws. Muriel died in 1991.
